I was sitting in the Friendly Lounge, one block from my Philly apartment. Next to me was a 59-year-old man, Robert .
Seeing my wedding band, he confided, "You're lucky to have somebody to
go home to. I always had a lover, a boyfriend, but I haven't had anybody
in ten years. And it's not the," and he suddenly dipped his head down
near my crotch, "but the support, you know. I can't just go home and say
to somebody, 'b*tch, I love you!'"

I was getting
buzzed in Dirty Frank's, downtown Philly's second cheapest bar, when an
old friend proposed, "You should come over some time. I'll make you
dinner." She knew I was married. On another occasion, this lovely woman
moaned, "I just want somebody to love." On a third, she called me after
2AM, "motherf*cker, where are you?!"

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Sitting home, I
received an email from a Vietnamese poet who lives in a sunshiny state.
Though I've known this unhappily married 40-year-old for more than a
decade, we've never met face-to-face. In Vietnamese, she wrote, "Crazy
teacher, please help me to translate: I'm aroused. I'm horny. I'm a
prostitute. I'm an aroused prostitute. I'm an extremely horny prostitute. Thank you
very much."

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I cite these handy examples not to
embarrass anybody or to, God forbid, present my splotchy carcass as
somehow in demand, but simply to point out the loneliness that afflicts
this society is so appallingly pervasive and, I suspect, unprecedented.
Our infants are immediately removed from their moms, our toddlers are
parked in front of blathering televisions when not institutionalized,
our dating millennials stare at separate iPads, our married couples hide
their sexting and porn habits from each other, our old people blunder
down a dark hallway or endless sidewalk alone. Else, they lie unvisited,
waiting for death, and when kaput, may not be discovered for a week, as
happened to my friend Lee Goldston. Yo, Lee!

In 1970,
only 17% American households had but a single person, but it's up to
27.5% now. Moreover, many of those who live with others may be sharing a
dwelling with annoying strangers, or curled up in their parents'
basement. Take Robert's situation. In a house with four other people, he
has a room "the size of a napkin." Each time he uses the bathroom, he's
"afraid to step on the floor. The ceiling tiles are falling down. The
wall tiles are falling out. It's gross in there!" And Robert never uses
the kitchen because that's filthy too. No one ever washes the dishes. In
short, it's not a home, but then most Americans don't really have one
anyway.

For many, it's merely a spot to lie down after
the long commute. For others, it's a nest that can be blown away after
the next missed rent or mortgage check. Made of sheetrocks, marathon
loan payments and always rising taxes, an American home is about as
permanent as a bad sitcom. To have no true home is to be constantly
anxious, if not panic stricken, and since many of us are also isolated,
physically and psychologically, what you have, then, is a society of
frustrated, angry, ashamed and nervous wrecks. No wonder we take more
drugs than anybody else!

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One man who still has his
family home is my acquaintance, Bill. For a decade, Bill made beaucoup
bucks as a computer technician but, at age 44, had to switch career to
become a transit policeman. (He even applied to Homeland Security, but
wasn't hired.) Assigned to a shopping mall, Bill had to occasionally
arrest shoplifters or break up fights among unruly teens, but mostly he
just strolled around to flirt with selected cashiers. Fresh from
Lindenwold, New Jersey, 18-year-old Chelsea with her bleached blonde
hair and rose and vine tattoo climbing up one pale arm was particularly
enticing. For a few seconds, Bill fantasized about rescuing her from
Starbucks. A playa, in short, he doesn't mind living alone in his
eight-bedroom, inherited house, though his winter heating bills are a
real b*tch. Though a teenager at heart, Bill has also just turned 50, so
most nights find him eating turkey, his favorite, while watching
Netflix next a huge dalmatian, Myer. Unlike humans, dogs don't
experience drawn out illnesses that may last decades. Bill likes it that
way.

Thanks to a large inheritance, Jim also has his
own house and, unlike Bill, doesn't even have to work. A typical day
finds him listening to Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra and Abbey Lincoln while
browsing Rolling Stone and CounterPunch. After a leisurely porn pause,
he might check in on National Public Radio. At 53-years-old, Jim has
never had to take care of anyone save a series of tabbies, and his
biggest exertion in life, his greatest achievement ever, was his escape
from a decade-long crack habit. Further, Jim considers himself a
"revolutionary," though the only people he's ever fought were his
neighbors. With a shovel, Jim shattered a bar window, then hit a
homeless man with a rebar, but it wasn't until he threatened someone
with a grass trimmer that he ended up in a psychiatric ward for three
days. Out, Jim's back to his half-listening, half-reading and
half-masturbating routine, and he'll maintain this progressive regiment
until social justice is tightly entwined in a 69, yin yang fashion, with
equitable wealth distribution. Actually, forget the second part, for
there's no way Jim will share one square inch of his two-story house
with anything larger than a slim cat. Jim likes it that way.